


Slowly the Day Breaks Apart in Our Hands

by flightofthedragons



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Aromantic, Aromantic Hermann Gottlieb, Bipolar Newton Geiszler, Gen, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Trans Newton Geiszler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 15:11:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2512172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightofthedragons/pseuds/flightofthedragons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When it came down to it, there was no doubt in Dr. Geiszler's mind that had he and Hermann Gottlieb been inside a Jaeger, they wouldn't have been able to pilot it.</p><p>He's not sure why that matters as much as it does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slowly the Day Breaks Apart in Our Hands

**Author's Note:**

> title from The Lightning Strike by Snow Patrol

After the initial crisis was over and the high that came with their victory wore off, Newt and Hermann avoided each other as though an encounter might initiate the kaijus' return. Somewhere in the back of Newton's head was a voice which insisted that they were still the same people and nothing had changed- that an experience like _that one_ should have been bringing them closer instead of driving them apart. Unfortunately, he'd never been one to make rational decisions when more interested in something else- a fact which seemed responsible for their current predicament.  
\- - -  
If he had ever stopped moving for long enough to really think about it, Newt never would have _expected_ to stay in contact with Hermann after the war was over. Still...drifting with the kaiju...that had changed _something,_ hadn't it?

The thing- at least, the thing that kept coming back to his mind, over and over until he'd stripped all of its relevancy away and was left staring at the cold fact- was that he and Hermann weren't compatible. He could argue for kaiju interference or claim they _must_ have been, since they'd operated so smoothly with the information they'd gleaned from the mind-meld, but that didn't mean he'd believe it. When it came down to it, there was no doubt in Dr. Geiszler's mind that he and Hermann Gottlieb had been inside a Jaeger, they wouldn't have been able to pilot it.

He's not sure why that matters as much as it does.  
\- - -  
It was Marshall Hansen who shook him, finally. It was the kaiju who'd taken his family, but it was also the Jaegers. More than that, it was his and Chuck's own stubborn attitudes that had built such a gap between them- one that was never crossed. 

"You can't avoid him forever," the Australian man insisted solemnly, and Newton nodded. He hadn't been planning to, honest, not forever. Just until they had moved out of Hong Kong and maybe lived in different countries. Or a decade, when Hermann's memory was faint enough that he might not hate Newton so much.

"Go." Herc Hansen glared at him, and Newt nodded frantically. Right. Going.  
\- - -  
It was the little things that bothered Newt more than anything. At least he _remembered_ seeing the hive. Suddenly so many of Hermann's odd little habits made sense to Newton, and he could no longer tell what he'd known before and what he gained from the drift. In a sense, he couldn't remember what was from his own head and what was put there by somebody else's. And as screwed up as his own brain could be, he'd always appreciated knowing his thoughts were his own.

The change scared him.  
\- - -  
"You've been avoiding me."

Hermann scoffed, and the exasperation etched into his features was so familiar Newt barely noticed it. "It's alright, I mean, I've been avoiding you, too. But I just figured...we should probably talk. You know, about the drift."

"There is nothing to talk about," Hermann spoke harshly. "You and I, via an _insane_ method that nearly killed you prior, breached the kaiju's mind and found vital information which allowed us to destroy the bridge between their world and ours. We were successful. _Rock stars,_ you could say."

"Yeah, but..." Newt trailed off uncertainly. "When Jaeger pilots drift, they both connect to the Jaegers, obviously, but they also share each others' thoughts. It's uncertain just how much, as they don't become fully telepathic, but it's widely accepted that some things no longer need to be said aloud. Even outside the drift, this effect sometimes lingers-"

"Dr. Geiszler, I am, as I am sure you are well aware, as educated on the subject as yourself, if not more so. I have nothing more to say to you on the subject. I suggest you make yourself scarce as we have only a few more days to tolerate each others' presences before returning to our individual dwellings for respite from this era."

As he moved to brush past Newt, the latter blurted out the first thoughts he could. "I know when your back hurts. Like yesterday, when we were packing. You said it didn't and I-.... You lied. It hurt a _lot_. I felt it, dude."

Hermann stopped moving.  
\- - -  
He sometimes wondered about the Jaeger pilots, if it was the same for them.

Maybe that's what drift compatibility really was- not the ability to fight kaiju together, but the ability to face each other after. Perhaps that's why all the greatest Jaeger teams were either family or lovers.  
\- - -  
He tried to talk to Raleigh about it once, to explain his theories about the kaiju hive. He had barely scraped the surface of his findings when Raleigh squared his shoulders and fixed Newt with a steely look. "I've had enough of the monsters to give me nightmares for a lifetime, Dr. Geiszler, I certainly don't need more." And right, okay, of course, he should have assumed as much, but Newt was dying to tell somebody and the only other man who'd truly understand was...well, a curmudgeon who regarded Newton like a contagious disease.  
\- - -  
It didn't help that Raleigh and Mako were behaving nearly the opposite of he and Hermann (Dr. _Gottlieb_ , a voice in his mind chided, and was promptly ignored). They never stood more than ten feet apart, often times oblivious to everyone else. Newt didn't know it they qualified as family-or-lovers, or even if they would, but it was clear that the drift had brought them closer.  
\- - -  
Newt never thought things through. For all that he _thought_ about things constantly in his mind, he never quite managed to thing them _through_. He was prepared to drift with a kaiju. Heck, he was even ready to drift with a kaiju with _Hermann Gottlieb_.

Which did not actually mean he was ready to drift with Hermann Gottlieb.

To be completely honest, it hadn't even occurred to him, at least not until he found himself staring directly into the face of Vanessa Gottlieb and realized so many thoughts that were not his own-- that Vanessa was gorgeous and Hermann loved her but he didn't _love_ her and he was seeing someone else's pregnant wife through someone else's eyes and oh god that probably meant that Hermann could see _his_ past and he hadn't realized that and Hermann had and Newt was so, so screwed and he didn't actually WANT to be doing this but they needed the kaiju and--

He never thought things through.

But Newt focused on the kaiju, because they were fascinating and they were everything he'd been living for and wondering about for the past eleven years of his life, and nothing else really mattered until much later on.

When later on came, it piled in on Newton so quickly that he found himself sitting on the floor of his bunker, unable to breathe.  
\- - -  
Coffee didn't feel like it would be Hermann's style, but then, it certainly wasn't Newt's. Middle ground, that's what it was, for the two scientists who barely knew each other but knew all too much about the other.

Hermann seemed weary, mostly, but lacked spite in his words. He answered all of Newt's questions but asked none of his own. Finally, when the silence seemed to stretch out for too long, Newton exhaled in frustration. So he asked about Vanessa.  
\- - -  
The drift wasn't anything like he expected. It was _lurching_ and unsteady and endless, more like being shoved into a tsunami than suspended in time. There was no chance to adjust; he was instantly staring at a sea of kaiju and at the same time viewing a scene between himself and a brown-haired woman. Newton looked around for Hermann and found himself beside Newt, holding the woman's hand, and Newt realized he wasn't interacting with her at all. Hermann's memory was being reenacted right in the middle of the kaiju's. The thoughts of both the hive and his fellow scientist were crammed into his head along his and there was so much guilt and destruction and war and joy and he couldn't follow anything so he grabbed Hermann's shoulder and _yanked_.

The guilt poured in, stronger and linked with memories that weren't his own, as well as a steady mantra of _what have I done_ and _I'm sorry Vanessa_ and _I didn't mean to_. It lasted maybe half a second and was too much for Newton to take. The moment he and Dr. Gottlieb were separated from Hermann's memory, they were flung fully into the hive's. Newt needed it to _stop_. He needed his own head back and unattached to others' memories, and he didn't even know what kind of thoughts he was projecting. Really they should have been focusing on the kaiju's mind anyway, but it was hard to focus when he was _part_ of the kaiju's thoughts-

And then they were gone, and he was left unsteady on his own feet, in his own head, standing next to the dead Otachi and an imprompty junkyard. He looked at Hermann, who gazed back at him.

At least he wasn't the one who puked.  
\- - -  
He expected, if nothing else, for Hermann to be mad. He expected him to start yelling at him again, to tell him it was none of his business and Newton shouldn't have seen any of that in the first place. Instead, Hermann became silent, and Newt felt, if possible, worse. 

"My wife...I love her."

"I know," Newt interjected quickly. Hermann glared at him, and he quickly fell back into silence.

"I do not love her as most husbands love their wives. She knows this. I am neither disloyal nor dishonest, and I certainly would not wish to spend the majority of my life with anyone else. That said, I do feel...guilty, at times, that I cannot offer her more. I felt particularly guilty the day we drifted, as I had not been in contact with Vanessa for quite some time leading to then. I am sorry, Newton. It was irresponsible of me to drag you into my emotions like that. I should have done better to control myself."

"Dude..." Newton reached out an arm to comfort Hermann, but he shifted away. The subject was closed. 

"Is there anything else you wish to ask, Dr. Gottlieb?"  
\- - -  
It had been hard enough getting any sort of respect from Dr. Gottlieb before; it was nearly unbearable to imagine how he might treat Newton now that he'd relived the latter's childhood within the Drift. Maybe if he'd just _told_ Hermann, been forthright with him in the first place- but no. He hadn't lied, either, and it was in neither's best interest to share that information. There was nothing for it but to brace himself again Dr. Gottlieb's scorn. Eventually.  
\- - -  
"How much of my mind did you get?" Newton finally asked.

"What a crude way of putting things. I did not 'get' any of your mind, nor did you receive mine. However, if you are attempting to determine the thoughts of yours which I saw, the answer is merely your base emotions. The moment you removed me from my preoccupations, for instance, your thoughts were quite clear." Hermann smirked wryly at this, and Newton gulped, suppressing the self-consciousness that was quickly rising in him.

"How about memories? Did you see...anything? Anyone? From, like, my past and stuff?"

"Not as such," Hermann replied serenely. "Why, is there something I should know?"

"I, uh...I'm a trans man."  
\- - -  
He got the first tattoo to cover the scars. To be completely fair to his surgeon, the scars weren't all that visible in the first place except, probably, within his head, but Newton didn't want them there at all. So he covered the old memories in new ones, the ink vibrant on his chest and rendering the scars invisible. Sometimes he wasn't sure if they were even real, like maybe the whole thing had been a bad dream.

He wasn't sure why he cared so much if Dr. Gottlieb knew, to be honest. For all that the man was old fashioned, he could hardly pretend he'd ever read Newton as female. It wasn't like he even had that many horrible memories, to be honest; his parents had been pretty decent about it and most other people in his life hadn't stayed there long enough to have a lasting impact. That was how Newt lived- always on the move, taking the good things with him and throwing the rest behind. He wasn't a child prodigy, he was simply brilliant.  
\- - -  
"I see." Dr. Gottlieb blinked, seemingly caught off guard. "And you...were worried I'd seen...something?"

"Something," Newt confirmed, weight settling in his stomach. The other scientist was giving little visible reaction to this information, and he wasn't yet sure whether this was a bad thing.

"Well, I suspect we are both glad that the drift does not work in such a way that one's entire childhood gets viewed by the copilot. Not even you deserve to be the subject of the irony that would be meeting my father via jaeger technology." Hermann chuckled darkly.

Newton's eyes widened. "Your father? Lars Gottlieb? He's the head of the Wall, isn't he?"

"Yes, he is." Hermann took a sip of his coffee. _Black, one sugar, not as dark as he would have liked,_ Newton barely noticed himself thinking.

"Well, look at us. Drinking coffee in a café like normal people. Almost like friends," Newton couldn't resist adding. 

Hermann just raised an eyebrow. "Or something."  
\- - -  
Piloting a jaeger?

Or facing each other?  
\- - -  
"D'you think we're drift compatible?" Newton blurted. 

"Dr. Gottlieb, of all the absurd-" Hermann stopped, looking confused. "I...I don't know," he finally admitted. "The question is moot, of course, as the jaeger program is no longer necessary and even if it were neither of us would be eligible, but it is interesting to ponder." 

"I had a theory," Newt said. "Not a scientific one, I mean. Just...an idea, really." And he shared the idea with Hermann, trying not to feel too timid for a while. 

Hermann laughed. Not the dry, sarcastic chuckle he was used to hearing, but a full-bellied, shaking laughter that seemed to consume him. 

"I...I suppose," he stopped, trying to catch his breath. "I suppose, by that definition, the two of us would be experts at facing each other when we'd rather not, no matter the crisis at hand."  
\- - -  
"In that case," Newton grinned, "I'll come visit you and Vanessa and the kid sometime. You'll never get rid of me, not forever." 

Hermann shook his head. "I wouldn't dream of it."


End file.
